ATOMOS Subforum?

[Mike Watson]

My Samurai isn't giving me anything from the headphone out port when I record, only when I playback. Anyone else having this problem, or have a solution?

[Mike Watson]

Originally Posted by Bob Willis

Why do you say that Mark?

It (apparently) works with about 3 or 4 of the 100s of SSDs that are on the market. And the 3 or 4 that work were introduced 12/18 months ago, and are difficult to source so you have to buy something else that you don't know if it'll work.

Of course.. you don't know it's not recording, because there is no display on the unit, just a variety of lights that flash in patterns. You could easily just check the manual to see what the particular flashing light pattern indicates, but there is no manual. You could plug in a display and press the "DISP" button, and then read the onscreen display, but the "DISP" button doesn't do anything.

I have two of them for different applications, and suffice to say I am not a fan. I cannot return them, but I will be selling them both.

[Bob Willis]

Manual is here.
Blackmagic Design: Support Detail

SSD drives:
The following SSD's are recommended for uncompressed video capture:

OCZ 240GB Vertex 3
OCZ 480GB Vertex 3
Crucial 256GB C300
Kingston 64GB SSDNow V+
Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+

The OCZ's are readily available on Amazon or Newegg as well as other outlets.
They also have to be formatted as HTF.

[Mike Watson]

I guess I must have missed the manual in the box. Not for lack of looking.

I have used the Crucial and the Kingston, neither with long-term success (although they will occasionally work).

Regardless, I was downright thrilled to see that the Samurai worked out of the box, and will hold hours of footage on the same drive that the BlackMagic would hold 30 minutes on... if it could record for 30 continuous minutes, which it can't.

[Bob Willis]

Well, good to hear that you are having success with the AtomOS

[Alister Chapman]

Originally Posted by Marty Hudzik

The resulting footage, while not being compressed, looking very grainy. I was a bit shocked as it seems more prominent than the HDV footage I am used to. I reshot thie footage at -3db abd while it is dark, it is much less noisy.

I think you'll find that this is primarily a ProRes issue. In every test I have ever done with ProRes (using PC's, Mac's and other external recorders), the first pass encode to ProRes adds noise not present in the original. In addition not all ProRes encoders are equal, some perform better than others. I'm waiting for the DNxHD option as DNxHD should be much less noisy.

[Bob Willis]

Curious to know what you find out about the DNXHD option, since I still do all my editing on Avid.

[Peter Corbett]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

I think you'll find that this is primarily a ProRes issue. In every test I have ever done with ProRes (using PC's, Mac's and other external recorders), the first pass encode to ProRes adds noise not present in the original. In addition not all ProRes encoders are equal, some perform better than others. I'm waiting for the DNxHD option as DNxHD should be much less noisy.

Alistair what happens when you try to import native Avid files into Premiere?

[Marty Hudzik]

I was able to get outside and shoot some nice footage at the park. Granted, my subjects were ducks and geese who were pan-handling bread from my wife and daughter. But the results seem quite good.

I shot with -3db of gain on the XLh1 and the Pro-res 422 option. I thought this was the best setting but it turns out the HQ is. Regardless, the footage was superb. It seems overly sharp when editing on my PC....almost like edge enhancement, but all footage viewed on my PC monitor over the years looks much worse than when viewed on a good HDTV.

As such, I was initially concerned but after outputting to h.264 and vieweing on my TV I am elated. The footage looks brilliant with great colors and no signs of compression. I filmed a good amount of ducks swimming in the lake and the sun was reflecting and none of the HDV artifacts are present (obviously). So far so good.

Using the Control L is working great so far. I shot aproximately 45 clips and it never missing or behave badly. The audio out of the XLh1 via analog to analog on the Samurai worked great so far.

FYI, when I filled up my HDV tape (Rolling as a backup) the Samurai just kept going. Even when I hit the record button to stop, it didn't. So it would appear that the Control L trigger only works if there is a tape inserted. Unless I am mistaken. I had to manually stop the Samurai via the screen. If you don't want to use HDV tape in an older tape based camera you may need another option. I shot most of the day in an ENG over the should style so reaching up to initialize a recording everytime would have been a pain.

Also, the LCD panel is a waste out in broad daylight as it is far too dark to use. I just left it on the "Menu" screen and referenced it from time to time to verify it was recording. It always was. Also, the screen seems rather dark. What I see in my EVF is much brighter, and closer to what I get when recorded. The brightness needs a boost, and I cannot wait until some of the "field monitor" features are enabled in future firmware updates. Still, I cannot recommend this to replace a good field monitor at this point. But for the price....it can't be beat as an "added feature".

I also shot an outside tree lighting ceremony last night, and it was dark! I had no choice but to crank the gain to +12. I knew it would be noisy, but I figured I'd try. Well I was right. The footage was full of grain it looked pretty bad. However, when I applied the NeatVideo noise filter, it cleaned up phenomenally! I think that the footage is more robust so it had more room to manipulate it. I need to try it on HDV of the same clip but I cannot imagine that it will turn out nearly as well.

Well...I will keep you posted as I move forward with the camera and samurai combo. I wish I was running this on an F3 or even an FS100 though. Oh well. I am amazed at the quality of the images. All this and I wasn't even shooting in the HQ mode after all! I'll give that a try.

Thanks all.

[James Kuhn]

Marty...sweet!! I haven't taken mine out for 'a go', yet. I'm looking forward to it. My plan is to take my rig out to the wildlife refuge, hopefully I'll catch some good views of the White Pelicans, maybe a Bald Eagle, I saw one the last time I went fishing. The panorama is stunning during the 'magic hour'.

I have a question, if you don't mind? How did your PC behave while transferring to files to your NLE. Was it cooperative? Did you use QuickTime Player? In the 'User Manual' I haven't seen any reference to 'QuickTime', I'm wondering if Atomos has done away with the need to use QT to trans-code the ProRes?

Thanks,

J.

[Kevin Martorana]

Marty...

Thanks for the update ! Promising to hear that the analog audio works well. We too...have an original XLH1. I still like having the HDV tape as a backup. Digital is great but still too many little things can go wrong. So it's also good to hear that the lanc connection works well.


How did you connect the RCA's to the Samurai ? It seems it has two inputs? Both look like mini connections ?

How was the battery life on the Samurai ?

Thanks for the updates !!

[Mike Watson]

Originally Posted by Kevin Martorana

It seems it has two inputs? Both look like mini connections ?

One 1/8" mini input, one 1/8" mini output. As I mentioned earlier in the page, I plugged my headphones into the output and couldn't get anything... don't know if this is my unit, or a systemic problem.

[Mike Sims]

Mike- Have you enabled headphone output for the channels you are recording? Right above the record
button for each channel is a headphone button which must be switched on to get output of that channel to the phones.

Marty- You say “Using the Control L is working great so far.” Which LANC controller are you using? I have tried a couple of controllers with my XL H1 and neither will trigger the Samurai nor pass through to the camera. Are you perhaps not using a controller and just connecting the camera LANC to the Samurai LANC IN and triggering the camera manually to start the Samurai? This is working for me. I would like to hear from anyone that is using a Canon compatible LANC controller to trigger the Samurai directly (understanding that it must also be terminated at the camera).

[Marty Hudzik]

Sorry. I am using camera to trigger the samurai at this point. I have not tried with any kind of actual lanc controller that you mount on a tripod. I might need this in the future so will be watching intently to see if you resolve this.

[Mike Watson]

FYI, You cannot power the Samurai by plugging it in. You must use the batteries, and change them out when they run low. It does appear you can run it continuously, if you swap one battery out and charge it while running off the other one.